"
"They have it in turn, and it wouldn't do to favour one more than
another."
"He could hand his guinea, or whatever they gave him, to the one
whose turn it ought to have been, and that would set it all right."
At this point the silk mercer, fearing that the dominie, as he
called him, was silently disapproving, and willing therefore to
change the subject, turned to him and said,
"Why shouldn't you give us a sermon, Graham?"
The schoolmaster laughed.
"Did you never hear," he said, "how I fell like Dagon on the
threshold of the church, and have lain there ever since."
"What has that to do with it?" returned his friend, sorry that
his forgetfulness should have caused a painful recollection. "That
is ages ago, when you were little more than a boy. Seriously," he
added, chiefly to cover his little indiscretion, "will you preach
for us the Sunday after next?"
Deacons generally ask a man to preach for them.
"No," said Mr Graham.
But even as he said it, a something began to move in his heart--
a something half of jealousy for God, half of pity for poor souls
buffeted by such winds as had that morning been roaring, chaff
laden, about the church, while the grain fell all to the bottom of
the pulpit. Something burned in him: was it the word that was as
a fire in his bones, or was it a mere lust of talk? He thought for
a moment.
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